Although the entire forest preserve is approximately 90 acres, about half of it is a dedicated Nature Preserve (48 acres). Additionally, approximately 70 acres are an Illinois Natural Areas Inventory (INAI) site. The interplay of which areas get deemed which designation and quality is interesting to me. For instance, it is included in categories II and III by the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory (IL DNR, September 2011). Category III includes all Nature Preserves, which means 48 acres are included by default. Category II includes “specific suitable habitat for state-listed species or state-listed species relocations,” which means that about 22 acres outside of the 48-acre nature preserve either contained state-listed species when the INAI conducted field surveys, or was deemed high enough quality to be considered for relocation of state-listed species. The other 20 acres consists of “cultural” areas such as the picnic pavilion, parking lot, turf grass, and perhaps low-quality natural areas.

The Illinois Nature Preserve Commission site says:
“This diverse northeastern Illinois woodland is located in the Grand Prairie Section for the Grand Prairie Natural Division. The preserve is a complex of sedge dominated wet savanna/northern flatwoods, seep springs and wet-mesic to dry-mesic upland forest with associated successional fields, upland forest and a small pine plantation as buffer. The tract is moderately disturbed, but is important because of the unique interplay of several different natural communities.”

Echinacea in winter. Anyone have a good way to distinguish E. purpurea from E. pallida seedheads in the winter? The individual seeds are different–Prairie Moon nursery shows E. pallida seeds have a dark band across each one, whereas E. purpurea lacks this band, but I’m curious if there is a general gestalt difference. Here’s looking at you, Echinacea Project; I know y’all are E. angustifolia but you may know, eh?